The tactic of labelling everyone with left wing views as being Communists or Marxists is one that was used by MacCarthy in the USA to close down debate and to discredit those that espoused views which challenged the right wing establishment. It was very effective too, since many of the people accused of being "fellow travellers" were silenced because they never worked again.
Most leaders and politicians have had what would be described by some people as "disreputable" associations - either because they felt it was more productive to maintain courteous relationships in the hope of influencing the behaviour of the leaders involved or because they genuinely admired the leaders in question. Mrs Thatcher described General Pinochet as "a very dear friend" who was "bringing democracy to Chile" (even though he and his military overthrew a democratically elected government and subsequently presided over a regime where 2,000 opponents were murdered and 30,000 tortured). Instead of supporting the movement to end apartheid, she demonstrated a firm commitment to the apartheid leaders, instead describing the ANC and Nelson Mandela as "terrorists". In Indonesia where at least 500,000 East Timorese were killed while General Suharto was in power, she described him as "one of our best and most valuable friends". When people like Corbyn were urging discussions involving all parties to the "the troubles", including the IRA, Thatcher and many others, expressed their disgust. We now know that secret talks were going on anyway and it was by involving all parties that finally some sort of normality was established in Northern Ireland.
Mrs Thatcher and Ronald Reagan were not interested in democracy when it produced leaders of whom they disapproved. They took no steps to use their amicable relationships with tyrants and despots to try and change their mode of governance - at least not until, as in the case of South Africa, the writing was already on the wall.
My feeling is there is nothing wrong with trying to maintain friendly relationships with people whose behaviour you do not necessarily approve of, so long as at the same time you encourage all the parties in a dispute to work towards peacefully settling their differences.
Jeremy Corbyn has always opposed war and the sale of arms. He continues to urge the big powers not to continue to fuel the many wars and conflicts around the world by selling arms. ISIS, for instance, is reported to have vast numbers of brand new and extremely sophisticated weapons, including tanks and armoured vehicles. Why is no-one asksing questions as to which countries have supplied these weapons and which countries are buying the oil that ISIS is now in control of?
